Authentic by being inauthentic: An alien's guide to the 2016 election.

The primary issue on both sides is authenticity. That is the primary problem for Hillary Clinton, and the primary strength of Bernie Sanders. Nobody doubts Sanders is precisely what he claims and appears to be, and everybody doubts, probably even Hillary, that she is what she appears to be this month, because she's appeared to be so many things for so many months. On the right, the same kind of argument is going on.

Our Man in London, David Skalinder analyzes the US presidential election from his spot on Mars, and explains why this election is about authenticity and inequality, what the candidates can learn from David Bowie, and how the specter of Occupy is still haunting both sides of American politics.

David Skalinder dreams of an agile and compelling ideology of the left; but that’s a quiet beat, so he usually reports on the nimble American right, the lumbering institutional left, and the confused frustration of everybody else on both sides of the Atlantic.